Researchers

Asonzeh UkahUniversity of Cape Town, South Africa

Team Leader

Asonzeh Ukah is a sociologist/historian of religion. He joined the University of Cape Town, South Africa, in 2013. Previously, he taught at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, from 2005 to 2013. He studied at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and the University of Bayreuth, Germany. He is the author of “ANew Paradigm of Pentecostal Power: A Study of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Nigeria” (Africa World Press, 2008) and co-editor of “Bourdieu in Africa: Exploring the Dynamics of religious Fields” (Brill, 2016). He is the Director of the Research Institute on Christianity and Society in Africa (RICSA), University of Cape Town, South Africa, and Affiliated Senior Fellow of Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS), University of Bayreuth, Germany. His research interests and specialties include Pentecostalism, religion and globalization, media and material culture of African Pentecostalism, sacred cities and spaces.

Ass Prof. Wotsuna KhamlwaMakerere University, Uganda

Team Member

Wotsuna Khamalwa is an Associate Professor of Anthropology of Religion at Makerere University, Uganda. He holds a PhD in Science of Religion (with Anthropology and Sociology) from the University of Bayreuth, Germany. He has taught Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology, and Religion at various universities in Africa, Europe and United States of America. His research interests include: Inculturation of Christianity in Africa; Cultural Identity and Conflicts in Africa; Poverty, Religion and Child Sacrifice in Uganda; Culture and Food Security; Ethno-Healing Methods and Modern Medicine in the Fight against HIV/AIDS; and the Cultural dimension of Trans-boundary Animal Diseases and Zoonoses. He has over twenty publications including a book entitled- Identity, Power and Culture, two film documentaries, an MA module on African Christianity, and many book chapters and articles in international refereed journals. These articles include: “Women, Science and Rural Farmers in Synergy”, “Myths and Core Values: Circumcision of the Mind” and “Mancraft and Womancraft: Gender Politics and Power Inequity”.

Dr. Serawit Bekele Debele University of Bayreuth, Germany

Team Member

Serawit Bekele Debele is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bayreuth’s Department of Religious Studies where she also obtained her PhD in the history of religions in 2015. Before she started her doctoral studies, she was a lecturer of history and cultural studies at Axum University, Ethiopia.

Her current research focuses on the interplay of religion and politics in contemporary Ethiopia. Her other areas of interest include: religion in relation to nationalism, space, media as well as gender. She has published articles on women and religious authority, the role of women in new religious movements, fieldwork in the study of religion and religion in revolutionary Ethiopia. Her forthcoming book is titled “Managing Irreecha Ritual: Religion in post-1991 Ethiopia”

Latest
News

27 July, 2017

Call for Papers - Currents, Perspectives, And Methodologies In World Christianity

Princeton Theological Seminary, New Jersey, USA

January 18 – January 20, 2018

The last few decades mark a significant watershed in the study of World Christianity as an emerging field, its development into an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary endeavor in particular. Most scholarship now characterizes World Christianity as a ‘polycentric’ faith